Everyday Patriotism and Putin's Foreign Policy

Discussions of popular support for the Kremlin’s foreign policy often invoke common international relations concepts as the “rally around the flag” effect, or suggest that the surfeit of patriotic coverage in domestic media galvanized support for Russia’s foreign policy. Yet in-depth interviews with Russian citizens reveal varied, contradictory, and often apolitical understandings of patriotism that do not automatically translate into support for the Kremlin’s foreign policy despite pervasive patriotic narratives about Russia’s allies and enemies. Based on in-depth interviews and focus groups conducted in Russia in 2014-2015, this paper examines the ways that Russian citizens’ perceptions of the Kremlin’s foreign policy are filtered through their understandings of patriotism.